Data Engineer
About Cleanview
Cleanview is a market intelligence platform that makes it easy for investors, business development teams, and clean energy professionals to track renewable energy projects and trends. The company processes millions of data points and tracks thousands of projects every month, using a combination of automation, AI, and expert research to provide rich detail on the most important developments in clean energy.
Cleanview's research has been cited in The New York Times, Reuters, Canary Media, and dozens of leading industry publications. The company was founded by Michael Thomas, a recognized thought leader in clean energy who writes a weekly newsletter reaching more than 75,000 subscribers and followers across all platforms (including Twitter, YouTube, and Substack).
The opportunity
We're looking for a Data Engineer to build and maintain data pipelines that will power our clean energy intelligence platform. This role will focus on integrating structured data sources from various energy agencies, grid operators, and regulatory bodies to provide comprehensive insights to our customers.
This is a contract role to start with the opportunity to potentially join full-time as we grow. We're looking for someone who can commit to 20-40 hours per week.
What you'll do
Build and maintain data pipelines to gather and process energy market data (interconnection queues, EIA reports, FERC filings)
Design database schemas and data models to efficiently store and retrieve clean energy project information
Create automated scripts to regularly collect data from RTOs/ISOs (ERCOT, MISO, CAISO, PJM, SPP, NY ISO, NE ISO)
Develop systems to track changes in renewable energy project status over time
Integrate community solar and small project databases from various sources
Improve data enrichment workflows by merging multiple data sources into cohesive datasets
Build mechanisms to combine structured data (databases, CSVs) with unstructured data (press releases, news articles)
Create processes to assign projects to researchers/QA team members and update the database
Identify and implement improvements to our data infrastructure as we scale
Required skills
Python programming experience for data processing and ETL workflows
SQL knowledge for database operations and data modeling
Ability to design and implement data pipelines
Experience scraping, cleaning, and validating data from a variety of sources (Excel files, PDFs, CSVs)
Nice to have
Javascript experience (our backend is built with NodeJS/Express and our frontend is built with React)
Google Cloud experience
Clean energy industry experience and familiarity
Knowledge of energy data sources (EIA, RTOs/ISOs, etc.)
Experience and interest in the latest AI tools (Cursor, OpenAI APIs, Deep Research, RAG, etc)
Our ideal candidate
We're looking for someone who balances speed and quality, with an emphasis on shipping quickly. As an early-stage startup processing relatively small data volumes (thousands to tens of thousands of rows), we value pragmatic solutions over perfectly optimized code. The ideal candidate won’t get too hung up on perfecting an ETL process with the latest tools.
The ideal candidate is self-directed, communicates clearly, and can suggest improvements to our data infrastructure as they work.
How we work and hire
We believe that most hiring processes are too complicated and screen for people who are good at interviewing more than those who are good at the actual work. Our hiring process and philosophy is a bit different than most companies.
Our hiring process is designed to be straightforward and focused on real work:
Initial application review
1-2 video interview(s) to discuss your experience and our needs
Paid small project (8-16 hours) working on a real business problem
Longer contract (e.g. 1-3 months at 20-40 hours per week)
Potential transition to full-time role
Compensation
The compensation for this role is $8,000-10,000 per month for a contractor working 40 hours per week. If you prefer fewer hours per week, the compensation will be pro-rated accordingly (e.g., $4,000-5,000 for 20 hours per week).
We're open to candidates with various experience levels from anywhere in the world, with the specific rate determined based on your relevant experience and location.
How to apply
To apply please fill out an application here. You can email any questions to michael@cleanview.co
In the cover letter, we’re particularly interested to hear about some of the projects you’ve built both in previous jobs and outside of work (e.g. side projects, open source contributions, etc).
Note: Cleanview is currently a company with just one full-time person, so I might not be able to get back to every candidate or email. But I will review all applications.
More about Cleanview
As an early stage startup, there isn’t a lot of information about us online. Here are some links that can help you learn more about the company and who you’d be working with:
Announcement blog post from the founder’s other newsletter, Distilled
Recent product announcement with more on our project and developer tracker
2025 State of Deployment report that was covered by The New York Times, The Guardian and more than a dozen media outlets
Founder’s other social profiles